


Intercept

by prairiecrow



Series: Geometry [7]
Category: Knight Rider (1982), Torchwood
Genre: Androids, Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pheromones, Regret, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death, Unrequited Love, Unspoken Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1222552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen is willing to admit that she has a lot of failings, but one of the biggest of them is that she's always been much too *aware* of Jack Harkness, in every way. Even now, when he's probably lost the android he loves — and all she can do is watch, and think about what might have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intercept

**Author's Note:**

> This is the episode referred to in Chapter 10 of "Tangram".

_She should have been happy for everybody concerned — really she should've. Things had worked out for the best…_

A bullet pierced the skull of the rifleman pointing his weapon at her, the crack of the gunshot loud in the dark echoing warehouse space — Jack's Webley, she'd recognize the sound of it anywhere, and the beefy female Oxsian behind her barely had time to tighten her hold on Gwen's biceps before another shot from the same gun dropped her where she stood. Gwen was dragged down in the henchman's wake as a third shot rang out, deep and resonant and like nothing produced by any Earthly weapon: her left ankle couldn't take any weight, and with her hands tied behind her back she couldn't even catch herself. She hit the floor on her left side, emitting a miserable yell of agony that almost drowned out the crack of a fourth shot from a gun that could have been Ianto's, and for a couple of seconds she had to squeeze her eyes closed against the waves of searing heat racing up her leg —

— and then Jack was there, his broad hands gently turning her over onto her front and dealing with the cuffs that bound her. "You okay?"

"Oh, I'm just _fine_ ," she managed to grind out through gritted teeth, still seeing stars. "Never better!"

The cuffs fell open and Jack tossed them away, clattering over the concrete floor. He felt her over briskly from her neck to her feet, his touch relentless even on her throbbing ankle, where his grip tightened to map the swelling. "It's not broken," he declared matter-of-factly, then reached up to take hold of her shoulders and carefully turn her onto her back. "How about anywhere else?"

"Just —" She bent her left leg the wrong way, put some pressure on the foot, and had to choke back another yell. "Just that! Oh…"

"Okay." Jack brushed a few stray strands of hair back off her forehead with deft fingers, and when she cracked her eyes open again she saw him smiling down at her, wide and bright. "I'm gonna —"

_This was all she could ever have: a fleeting touch in the heat of combat, a smile of praise for a job well done. Rhys had come first — and besides, she needed stability, someone she could depend on… not someone like Jack Harkness, who refused to conform to anybody's expectations and whose soul would shrivel and die in captivity. She needed a husband she could count on — and she'd gotten him, a man who loved her, who would fight for her, who would give his only life for her without a second's hesitation._

_She'd married her true love. She'd married the right man. But oh God, that smile…!_

"— get you over to that chair, okay? One, two —"

He picked her up so swiftly that it hardly hurt at all, with that effortless masculine strength of his

 _— and the way he_ **_smelled_ ** _, like Heaven come down to Earth —_

as he carried her to the wooden chair the chief Oxsian had been using and sat her down on it with due care, talking all the while: "We could still hear you through KITT's comms — good job keeping them talking. How'd you know that _Nosan_ was the magic word?"

She couldn't help but cling to him, just a little, as he knelt beside her. "You said that Dapa Prox was a Nosan, remember? I figured Deeva would be interested in anything to do with the same species as his worst enemy —"

"Huh." Jack smiled at her again, this time with fond pride that warmed her up inside to a ridiculous degree. "Figures you'd turn some off-handed remark into a —"

"Jack." Ianto's voice, low and taut, pulled their attention out of their shared gaze and over in his direction. Belatedly Gwen remembered:

_The other two shots —_

Two more bodies were sprawled on the open floor near where Gwen had gone down: a stocky male Oxsian, with an alien rifle still clutched in his gloved hands and blood seeping from his head, and a slimmer figure in a black leather motorcycle jacket, slumped face-down with its chin dipped to its chest, its loosely curled hands still cuffed behind its back. Ianto was down on one knee beside KITT, one hand on the android's left shoulder, shaking it

_He should be up by now, a single gunshot shouldn't even have slowed him down —_

to no effect. "He's not responding."

Through her arm still round Jack's shoulders Gwen could feel the shock of tension gather in his body, could feel his sharp intake of breath. "Jack?"

"That was a degauss rifle," he said: low, with an undercurrent of pure dread. He left her behind without a backward glance

_It's for the best…_

and crossed to kneel on KITT's opposite side, the way the android was facing, already reaching down to deal with the cuffs that KITT's strength should have torn apart like paper. "KITT?" Softly, then with more urgency when the android didn't react to his touch: "KITT!"

Ianto rose to his feet and stepped back, giving them room. He glanced toward Gwen, silent and conspiratorial — and sympathetic.

_He knows, of course he knows, Ianto doesn't miss a trick —_

Gwen was willing to admit that she had a lot of failings, but one of the biggest of them was that she'd always been much too _aware_ of Jack Harkness, in every way. Another was the way she couldn't deny the gravitational pull between them, even though ignoring it would have been exactly the right thing to do: she could only resist it, had been doing that much every day for over a year and a half, but — hey, didn't the Bible have a thing or two to say about sins committed in the heart?

_Ianto loves him, even if he really should know better._

Jack was a walking compilation of sins. He was magnetic and he knew it, and he had absolutely zero compunctions about doing anything that brought him pleasure, consequences be damned: he'd only held off on screwing KITT for so long because the one thing he valued above all else was his freedom, and Owen had warned that the robot would wrap him up in chains that nobody could untie — if he got too close. 

KITT's arms fell limp at his sides as soon as Jack got the cuffs off — limp and unilluminated, with no trace of blue light gleaming in the sliver of skin visible between the left cuff of his jacket and his black leather glove. Jack stroked one hand over the machine's cap of short blond hair, threading his fingers through it, his face growing horribly still… and then, with terrible gentleness, he took hold of KITT's shoulders and turned him over, and drew him up to rest against his chest.

Gwen looked to Ianto and saw the pain in his tightly composed face, a distress that mirrored the ache in her own heart. She had no idea what was happening — only that whatever it was, it was something bad, maybe even something fatal. She couldn't look at Jack right now, she couldn't stand seeing his mask start to crack…

_Because God help me, I love him too…_

Instead she concentrated on Ianto raising his right hand to his earpiece. "Tosh, Owen? If you're done with the difference engine, we need you down here _now_."

Gwen, her own earpiece taken and crushed by Deeva, couldn't hear the answer, only Ianto's response: "KITT's down. Hit with a degauss pulse. It's — it doesn't look good. He's totally unresponsive, no energy traces whatsoever…"

"KITT," Jack repeated, his voice starting to fray at the edges, "come _on…_ "

She loved him, however foolish or wise that might be, and because of that she had to bear witness. She forced her gaze back to Jack where he knelt cradling a dead robot in his arms, his left hand wrapped around the base of its skull to support its head against his shoulder while he scanned its face, searching for any sign of animation as he all but prayed: "C'mon, KITT… come back to us…"

 _He's not free anymore, and he hasn't been free for a long time. He_ **_chose_ ** _this —_

 _— the way he conspicuously_ **_didn't_ ** _choose me._

KITT's eyelids were cracked open just enough to reveal solid blackness already starting to fade to gunmetal grey. They gazed up at Jack's face, at Jack's desperate devotion, unseeing: whatever intelligence had dwelt behind them was gone, and Gwen could see that emptiness taking root in Jack's soul, breeding and growing fast.

_Did you ever tell him, Jack? Did he ever fill you with enough courage to say the words out loud? Y'know, the way you couldn't make yourself say them to me?_

Jack sucked in a quick soft breath, not a sob, no, he'd deny that through the pangs of a thousand deaths. He closed his eyes hard and pressed his lips to the android's smooth forehead, momentarily lost for words.

_He chose this, this chemical slavery..._

She could feel his pain, singing hot in the frequency that had always lain open between them. She could feel _him_ , and she could feel how good it would have been, if only she'd let him in…

_But did I ever give him any other choice? I did not. I turned him down flat, so I can hardly blame him for taking the next best thing that came along._

"Not like this!" He spoke as if it hurt to breathe, as if his immortal heart was being torn out of him, as if he'd forgotten anyone else was there: " _Please._ Not like this…"

_We've made our beds. Now we have to lie in them._

_Just not with each other._

Focused on Jack's face, on the anguish of his tightly closed eyelids and the tenderness of his hand curved around the back of KITT's head, she almost missed the flicker of blue at KITT's wrist, followed by a stronger pulse through the channels along his jawline. The android shuddered and spasmed, its right hand lurching up to clutch at the lapel of Jack's greatcoat; its lips parted, its eyes opening wide, and their centre-points of red light expanded into rapidly cycling circlets as vitality and presence flowed back into its body — and confusion into its slimly contoured face.

It was only in starting to breathe again herself that Gwen realized she'd been holding her breath.

"Captain?" KITT queried, his voice sounding slightly rusty as he gazed up into Jack's face, "I'm — what just happened? I've lost a full minute and —"

Jack, for his part, lit up with such undisguised delight that Gwen's heart soared as if on a contact high. "Welcome back!" he interrupted, and pulled KITT closer to press a quick warm kiss to those artificial lips —

— and the smile of bemusement he received in return, along with another questioning quirk of the android's eyebrows, told Gwen that KITT, as impossible as it seemed, didn't understand what all that joyful radiance meant.

 _So you've never said it, then._ She almost huffed. _Typical!_

If Jack felt any trace of her amused disapproval, he gave no sign. He was too busy holding KITT close and grinning down at him to pay much attention to anything else, including Tosh and Owen clattering down the metal staircase from the warehouse's second level, or Ianto's slight wistful smile…

… or the way Gwen was watching him now, more closely than ever — because Jack Harkness in love was a thing of rare and glorious wonder, even if that intensity would never be fully focussed on her.

They'd made their choices, hadn't they? And maybe, just maybe, there was something there to be glad for in spite of that — even if somewhere deep in her heart, a pang of persistent regret refused to be completely silenced.

_After all, Jack, you're not the only one who could've spoken the words out loud… are you?_

THE END


End file.
